"Yes, you do. You saw me sail it here, didn't you? It's only carrying one sail. You couldn't have a simpler boat and easier weather for it. It would be impossible to capsize us today even if you tried. Wake me up when we're half way back, opposite that bay with the two white houses. Otherwise, don't disturb me unless you're running ashore; Hasban wouldn't like that." Then as relaxed and self-contained as a cat, he settled down and went straight to sleep.
Their apprehension was so great that the boys almost disobeyed their tutor for the first time. But the challenge appealed strongly to Caldar and he soon talked Berin round. They sat and went over everything they had seen Idressin do. Then swallowing their doubts they cast off from the jetty, rowed laboriously out of the little bay and hoisted the sail.
The lightest of breezes was enough to send the unladen boat clipping smartly over the rippled surface, heading straight out into the lake. Berin sat down at the tiller and managed to bring them round on a more southerly heading; then they looked at each other in relief and grinned. There was only one other sail in sight, well behind them, and they had the whole lake in which to manoeuvre. The first few times they tacked, the boom swung over unchecked until they learned how to control it: but both boat and wind were most forgiving and they survived between fright and laughter. This erratic course took them zigzagging well out into the lake, and then, as their confidence grew, they tacked back closer inshore.
The day was warming up even more, and they relaxed to the soothing slap of wavelets on the hull and the creak of the sail. As they gradually approached the shoreline, the breeze grew fitful, at times dying away altogether before the next catspaw ruffled the surface, signalling the next gust. A brooding heaviness settled over the water and distance dissolved into haze.
It was Berin, standing in the stern, who noticed how much the scene had changed. "Hey, look, out there across the lake. It's pitch black. Look, that’s lightning."
"Mmm. It’s a storm," Caldar commented lazily. "That other boat's running away from it."
They watched for a while with quickening interest, until Berin began to grow uneasy. "See that dark line along the water. I think that's the front of the storm and it's coming straight at us. Fast. It's just about caught that boat. We're still half a mile off shore and we're not moving."
Caldar scrambled upright, took one glance and reacted at once. "You get the oars out, and I'll wake Idressin."
Even as they hurried into action, the other boat vanished behind the advancing curtain of the storm. After a quick look at what was coming up behind them, Idressin calmly told them to row straight for the shore and to leave the sail to him. A distant murmur became a low roar as the line of the squall approached with frightening speed, mocking their laboured efforts to row to safety. But the wind preceded the waves, and at the last minute they were able to scud ahead of the rearing white crests into the shelter of a tiny inlet. Just as Idressin let the boat drive ashore on a shingly beach, the storm front hit and whipped the waters of the cove to a boiling fury. The wind thrashed the trees wildly and the rain blew to and fro in solid whirling gouts.
They jumped ashore at once and dragged the boat as high as they could, securing the bow to the trunk of a sturdy tree. Caldar had spotted some large boulders just before they came ashore, and led the others blindly towards this hope of shelter. They were lucky. Within a couple of minutes the boys were sitting in a cave formed by two leaning rocks, watching the tutor light a fire from the wood stacked beside a well-used hearth. When he then produced bread and cheese from his sack, their draughty refuge began to seem snug and comforting as the storm raged outside.
"I wonder what happened to the other boat," Caldar said as they ate.
"What other boat?" asked the tutor.
"It followed us out from Torven and headed out into the middle of the lake like us."
"He doesn’t really mean 'like us'," Berin interjected, laughing. "They must have thought we were blind drunk."
Caldar grinned back at him, remembering, before turning back to the tutor. "Anyway, when we ran in nearer the shore, they were running parallel to us further out. Then the storm came rushing across the lake and caught them first just before we woke you up. I wonder if they're alright; the boat was no bigger than ours."
Idressin stared into the fire without commenting. Then he shrugged, and said, "It was a mistake to bring you to Torven. But it's done now. We’ll simply have to be more careful in future." He caught the boys' puzzled expressions and smiled. "I suppose I'll have to explain. I told you at Winterturn that part of the reason you're here is to keep you out of the way. Someone’s interested in you, possibly to do you harm. Whoever it is, I think they've found you."
The boys sat stunned by this blunt announcement. But not for long.
"You mean the people in that boat were following us?" Berin queried.
"Maybe. I had the feeling we were being watched in Torven. So I asked you two to sail the boat back, knowing it would be a slow and erratic journey. Any normal crew would have got far ahead of us in the first half hour. Anyone who didn't . . ." He did not complete the sentence. Then he chuckled. "Those people must have wondered what on earth you were doing. Well, if they're still afloat, they'll be too busy to worry about us for a while."
"Idressin, we've been at Hasban's for over six months now and I still don't understand what all this is about," Caldar felt he had to take this chance of voicing his bewilderment yet again. One of these days he might even get an answer. "Why are these people following us? Who are they? And why are you here teaching us peculiar things like basket-weaving?"
"I'm here because the Tinker called for me. As for the basket-weaving, it serves a purpose, several in fact. It keeps you busy and out of mischief for a start; that's no small thing, I assure you, however much you scowl. It keeps Hasban happy, or it has done so far. And it gives me a basis to start teaching you something."
He cocked an eyebrow quizzically at his audience." "You didn't really think I was here to teach you handwriting or grammar, did you? No, you've finished with school as you've known it before. You're learning something quite different now, and you're not doing too badly so far."
"The basket-maker in Torven said our baskets were excellent," Caldar put in smugly. "He thought we'd been weaving for years."
Idressin laughed out loud. "Caldar, Caldar. Did you think I'd agreed to be marooned up in the arse-end of the world just to teach you the ancient and honourable art of making baskets?" The tutor shook his head as if in disbelief. "I'd never touched a basket myself until I got talking to that fellow in Torven and it started to look like a good idea. For a few weeks I went up to see him regularly while I watched him work. I couldn't take too long to learn; you were nearly ready to start and Hasban was beginning to complain that I was doing less on the farm."
The boys were now staring at him in amazement.
"No, it's not basket-making that's important, my young friends. It's learning how to learn. It doesn't matter if you never make another basket in your lives. You're discovering how to acquire the key that unlocks the world. Attention. Such a small thing. But the rooms it can open are full of treasure. Does that sound fanciful? Well, so it will be for a long time.
For now I'm happy that you're starting to learn two things. First you need to be able to undertake any task life puts in front of you. In that respect you don't yet realise how many lessons the weaving’s been teaching you. And second you've begun to gain control over parts of your attention. It's a study that never ends, but, as I said, you've made a good beginning."
The boys were tongue-tied. Nothing in their peaceful rural lives, prior to meeting the Tinker, had prepared them for looking at the world in such a new way, as a treasure-house to be unlocked. And to master a craft and then throw it away! It sounded like madness. Deep down, in some way they could not articulate, they understood and were satisfied; yet the questions which rose to the surface were insistent and had to be asked.
"If it was all for a reason,
Idressin," Berin asked, "why did you make us remember those legends? I’ve never seen anyone reciting poetry while they were making shoes or anything daft like that.”
"It's to do with different kinds of attention, Berin. Exactly what, I'll let you puzzle out for yourself. It's time you asked yourself some of these questions instead of directing them all at me."
"It's no use me asking myself why we're here or why these people are following us," Caldar said almost plaintively, "because I haven't got the least idea what's going on."
"I can't tell you why you're being followed, Caldar, because I don't know exactly who those people are out there." He paused, looking at the fire. The storm was still battering the woods around their refuge, and they just had time to imagine the predicament of the other crew out on the open water, when the tutor continued. "I'll put it to you as simply as I can. Everyone has a role to fulfil in life, from one of Taccen's farmhands to the Emperor in Karkor. The Tinker believes that you two will have rather special roles. In fact everyone's role is unique and special, so perhaps I should say that yours are likely to be especially demanding. That's why you're learning things that most people don't need to know.
No one can totally refuse his role. You can either accept it willingly, prepare for it, and be what you were intended to be; or you can be dragged through it backwards, protesting like a petulant child. I'm helping you prepare. So far we've only touched the corner of what you'll have to learn, and I don't know how much time we have before life will come and carry you off into the main stream."
He paused again. Both boys were bursting with questions, but Idressin had not spoken to them so revealingly before and they held silent, not wanting to break his mood.
"It appears that someone else has found out about you and your possible futures, and they want to interfere with that. They may want to stop you or they may want to control your futures for their own ends. We hoped that you’d be safe here in Norleng for two or three years, while you begin to gather the knowledge and the strength to fend for yourselves. But that safety may end any day, perhaps it already has." He turned his head towards the cave entrance. "I think the storm's dying down. Let's see how our boat has fared."
The squall departed almost as suddenly as it had come. Within minutes they were back at the shingle beach, discovering to their relief that the boat was unscathed. They bailed out the few inches of water in the bottom, dragged it back into the water, and set off for Hasban's farm. They kept a sharp lookout for signs of the other boat: but they saw nothing, not even wreckage.
"We’d better assume they survived." said Idressin, uncharacteristically voicing his thoughts. " And they already know which area of the Lake to search. I think I’ll have to give Hasban a very good reason for concealing our presence." With that he withdrew into himself, and would answer no further questions.
For the next couple of days the boys hardly saw him. He left them to carry on with the baskets as before, until on the third day he came in and told them that things would be changing from now on. Grellek, Hasban's son, was also to be having instruction from Idressin, although not in basket-weaving. This meant that the tutor would have less time for Berin and Caldar, who were to continue making baskets for sale. They were slightly put out that their 'personal teacher', as they saw him, was now going to give some of his attention to someone else. They were a good deal more offended by what actually happened.
Chapter 10
Item 3. Report from Suntoren City Tax Office
Increasing difficulties, as previously reported, in collecting Residence Tax due to large number of transients and foreigners. Three proposals put forward for discussion:
- limit entry by numbers
- entry tax for foreigners
- entry registration to facilitate tracing incomers
Cr Borrady: Tax Office was ‘mad'. Problems exaggerated, proposals impossible to implement, and risk of offending powerful neighbours (esp. Quezma) too great.
Cr Venman: Supported Tax Office. Something must be done. City overcrowded and unsafe. Incomers were mostly ‘riff-raff', maybe even subversives, agents of foreign states.
Cr Merroon: 'Riff-raff' were really refugees. Incomers good people on hard times.
Cr Venman: Cr Merroon ‘needed to step out of her garden' and go around city. When assaulted and robbed, ‘she could tell her attackers what good people they were'. Her (Venman) proposal was to send them back to their own countries.
Cr Borrady: Cr Venman's views well-known and ‘myopic'. Tensions between Empire and Quezmas already high. May be heading for biggest global conflict for five hundred years, since the Great War. Only chance for Esparan was not to provoke either side. Refugees small price to pay for peace.
Cr Venman: Non-provocation was ‘a great success' (sarcasm) five hundred years ago. Esparan should shut its doors and send clear signal that it would defend its rights. Otherwise some bully would crowd in and end up taking over.
Cr Borrady: Exactly so. Any incident involving their nationals would provide either kingdom with genuine excuse to invade.
Cr Venman: Invaders didn't need genuine excuses.
Extract from record of Suntoren Council Meeting.TwoDay. FourMonth. ID912.
Esparan. Norleng
From the first Grellek treated them as social inferiors utterly beneath his notice. To their amazement and hurt, so did Idressin when Grellek was present. Usually the red-faced Norleng youth worked with the tutor somewhere up in the farm buildings, but sometimes they came down to the cottage while the tutor explained a new idea or process connected with the metal work they seemed to be studying. On these occasions Idressin neither greeted the boys nor even acknowledged their presence, unless asking them to perform some small menial task, like opening a window or bringing a chair for Grellek. He was often working up at the farm in the evenings too and had fallen right out of his friendly relationship with them, so the boys began to feel more isolated than ever before.
Idressin gave them very difficult additional tasks every day to be performed while they continued weaving; they were to compose poems in their heads to a very strict rhyme and rhythm, they had to learn long lists of words in a foreign language, they had to recall every different sound they had heard throughout the day, and so on.
Left to rely on their own resources, the boys flagged. The basket-work was slower and more prone to mistakes, and the difficulty of the extra daily tasks seemed to grow to mountainous proportions. It came to a head one day, when Grellek was in the cottage. He was lounging in the best chair, looking rather bored with Idressin's explanations, when his gaze fell on the two weavers.
"Tell them to go outside. I can't concentrate with all that noise and bustle in here."
The unfairness of the remark took Caldar's breath away. Grellek wasn't paying attention anyway - he never did - and this was their home as well as their place of work. His anger had already started to rise, when Idressin said casually. "Yes, they are rather noisy today. Go outside, will you, and take your baskets with you."
Caldar's anger became a cold fury that held him riveted to the work bench. He felt that if he moved, he would involuntarily spring at Grellek and hit him.
"I don't think your tutor wanted you to stop working." Grellek's drawl stoked the furnaces in Caldar still further. "He said, take all your junk outside and get on with it. You've got baskets to make." He turned back to Idressin, adding, "These fellows don't know what work really means."
Caldar came to his feet. All the unconnected and unresolved emotions which had brewed in him over the last year, from loneliness to misery, flashed together in one burning surge of rage. He turned and found Idressin's eyes full upon him with a look of such intensity, it was as if someone had put a hand right inside him. For an instant he was unable to move, and in that moment his anger dissolved as if it had never been. He turned, winked at Berin's anxious face and gathered up his work to go outside.
The extraordinary calm which replaced his anger, stayed with Caldar throughout
the day. Even when Idressin came to see them in the evening, he felt no impulse to question him and it was left to Berin to voice their frustrations.
After listening for a few minutes, the tutor stopped Berin with a gesture and said, "You find it impossible to work now. Why? What’s different now from the way it was a month ago? I am asking you to think. This is a serious question."
He waited while they fumbled for an answer. In the end they agreed that it seemed so much harder because they felt isolated and because they resented Grellek and his taunts, as well as the attention he was getting from Idressin.
The tutor waited until they had finished. Then he began, "Grellek is a pompous fool with a wide streak of cruelty. Why should you care that he poses as your superior, because of some imaginary picture he has of himself? Why should you be sent into an uncontrollable fury because a fool makes a few vacuous remarks? But it happens, doesn't it?"
His comments caught them dead centre as usual.
"At the moment Grellek is your best friend. You may smile, but it's true. You've learned the first easy steps towards mastering your attention, working with me; but it remains a fragile thing, almost an illusion. If it's to have real force, it needs to be used and rooted in your real life, in the midst of your daily actions and reactions.
So Grellek is luckily providing what was lacking before. You've worked for too long in peace, cocooned in self-satisfaction. Now a word from your ignorant benefactor sweeps away all that you think you've acquired and shows you a multitude of new things. He's brought you face to face with the simple destructive power of your emotions. He's shown you that you are led by the nose, not by your real feeling about yourself which has not been touched by this nonsense, but by some ridiculous conception of what's due to you to keep a false pride intact. There's much more. Do you want to learn?"
The question was put to them in a hard voice that left them with no misconceptions. It was entirely their own choice. They could stop now and spin out their time at Hasban's as pleasantly as possible. Or they could go further into the unknown teaching that Idressin was offering, which gave every sign of becoming harder and more painful as it progressed. They hesitated for a moment out of a natural fear, but they were already committed and first Caldar and then Berin agreed that they wished to go on.
The Tears of Sisme Page 20